Alexander Solzhenitsyn edited a powerful book that dramatically impacted my life in my thinking about how nations are transformed. While it was published in 1974 (renewed in 1981) and obviously is now out of print, for several of the essays, this book is worth searching for.
It should be noted that Solzhenitsyn is much more well thought of in the West than in Russia today. Even though he returned to live in Moscow, Russians generally feel he left the country to profit on his message, so he is not accorded the same kind of respect given to other dissidents that remained.
Still, there are powerful messages here. Personally, the most impacting was Solzhenitsyn's chapter "Repentance and the Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations" and Igor Shafarevich's "Separation or Reconciliation? The Nationalities Question..." In these chapters the authors suggest that national "repentance" is a key aspect to any kind meaningful social change. The search for sins begins in ourselves and progresses upward on behalf of the nation. He says, nations "are suceptible to all moral feelings.. including repentance" (p. 109). The nation is "mystically welded together" in this way. He further points to history to show the nature of Russian character in "penitental movements" as part of the national character that must be reclaimed to transform society.
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